While we’re both getting shoved into the back of a coach to be taken to god knows where for god knows how long, I spot a familiar face waiting inside. I’d recognize that neck anywhere. It’s the Fornian soldier that swiped Mazi. Before I can say anything, Piper yells, “Hey, it’s the guy with the fucked up face!”

  The prince pauses his ascent into the coach to wrinkle his nose and say, “Rude.”

  I try charging at the son of a bitch but get held back by two of the prince’s thugs. I yell anyway, “Where’s Mazi, you dickless piece of shit? What’d you do with him?”

  I’m shackled and forced into a seat next to Piper as Dickless responds, “Afraid I couldn’t say where the mask is at this point. Long gone by now, I’d imagine.” His voice sounds different than it did the last time I heard him talk. It’s more refined now. Less like a dipshit country bumpkin.

  The prince takes a seat next to him, facing Piper and me. Then he fills us in on all the evil details, “Our scouts recognized the Mask of Mazibaine when they spotted you in the mountains two days ago. Obviously we weren’t going to risk letting you use it against us. So I had Ulric here retrieve it before we moved in to capture you. He is quite skilled, as you no doubt know by now. The weapon will now go into Mother’s vault with the rest of her collection.”

  Piper squints at him. “Weapon? Mazi? Are you sure we’re talking about the same mask here?”

  I tell her, “I think he’s talking about that rainbow shit that comes out of his mouth.”

  The prince points at me and clicks his tongue to confirm. Then he pounds the ceiling of the coach with his fist to prompt the driver to get the thing moving. Once I feel my weight start to shift, he tells us, “You know, I assumed the two of you would have figured out what was happening the moment you learned who I was. Seems I’ve over-estimated you. We’d still be out there chatting about olives and debating horse names if I hadn’t gotten bored and put an end to it.”

  Piper says through a scowl, “You know, I could set this whole carriage on fire if I wanted to.”

  The prince just shrugs with that same shit-eating smirk on his face. “Be my guest, but keep in mind that you’re the one chained to the seat.”

  She doesn’t have a response for that. So I ask him, “What the hell do you want with us?”

  He looks at Dickless Ulric and laughs before leaning forward and saying, “What do you think? Are we not currently at war with your heathen country? Led by the newly anointed ruler of Valencia, her father. You can imagine how this alters the stakes. We now have quite the bargaining chip on our hands. She has been found trespassing in our country. Our sovereign territory. I’m afraid we won’t stand for flagrant criminal acts such as this.”

  Piper and I are both speechless for a minute. Which is saying a lot for the two of us. Eventually, she says, “I hope you know I was lying when I said your country was beautiful. I think it looks like shit.”

  The prince crosses his legs and relaxes his arm over the back of the seat. “You don’t mean that.”

  She looks out the window and mumbles, “No, not really. But I still hate it here.”

  ***

  I may spend the rest of my life kicking myself in the balls for this one. Which in all likelihood, won’t be very long. How humiliating. And I could get over the fact that I threw my own life away in a string of piss-poor decision making, but I will never forgive myself for putting Piper in this situation. Turns out her father was right not to trust me.

  After our little tour of the countryside with Dickless Ulric and the prince, I’m forced out of the carriage while they keep Piper inside. Apparently they’re not taking us both to the same place. Neither of us says a word while it’s happening. She just watches with a look of desperation while they unshackle me and pull me out by my shirt collar. I drag my eyes off her just long enough to catch a glimpse of the prince as he waggles his fingers at me to say ‘fuck-thee-well.’ Then as soon as I’m outside in the dark, the carriage door slams shut and they take off with Piper still aboard.

  I’m dragged backwards until I turn around to see where the hell they’re taking me. That’s when I see the tall-as-fuck building that I assume is my new home. An enormous steel gate is slowly clanking up as I’m marched towards it. On either side of the walkway leading up to the gate are stone walls that’d be damn near impossible to climb. There are guards everywhere I look, even on the tops of the walls, and most of them are armed with crossbows. As soon as I’m past the gate, it stops and changes direction to clamber shut behind me.

  I’m led to a hallway that has wall torches every few feet with a guard stationed at each one. Distant yelling echoes down the halls, but the sound has decayed past the point of intelligibility by the time it reaches my ears. We take a turn and snake our way around two more halls, down a staircase, then one more hall before they stop me in front of a row of metal doors where a guard fumbles around with a keyring for a few seconds. I get his attention while he’s dicking around with the keys to ask, “Does this room come with the complimentary breakfast?”

  Needless to say, the guards don’t think I’m funny. Or maybe they’re just dumb and don’t get it. Either way, no one laughs. They just swing open a door that sounds like it hasn’t had its hinges lubricated in about a century and then shove me inside. Before I can even turn my head to get a look around, the door slams shut behind me. And the moment it’s closed, I’m completely blind. There are no windows and I can’t see a goddamn thing in here.

  I turn around and yell at where I think the door is, “Hey! HEY! How the fuck long am I gonna be in here?” Of course, no one answers. I don’t even know if they can hear me. Eventually, my eyes adjust to the darkness and I can see a scant amount of light coming in from underneath the door. I pace around for a minute—which in this tiny-ass cell means taking about a step and a half before turning around to go back the other way. It isn’t long before I realize I’d better get comfortable. Then I drop to the floor, cross my arms, and wait.

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  I have no idea how long it goes on for because I lose all sense of time after the first hour. Then I just languish and pine and languish some more while I contemplate every decision that led me to this place. The door never opens, not even for food. The only company I have is an occasional rat that scurries by outside the door and the skeletal remains of some poor bastard that the dickheads upstairs apparently forgot was in here. It feels like it goes on for a month but it’s probably more like a day and a half.

  The door eventually and unexpectedly swings open, long after my boredom has morphed into derangement. Then I’m dragged out into the blinding light of the hallway that may as well be the surface of the sun right now. My eyes slowly adjust as I’m carted this way and that through the prison. I hear more and more human voices the farther we get. They start out as ghostlike echoes that float down the halls and then get steadily more distinct until we arrive at our destination. Two big wooden doors creak open in front of me and then I’m looking at an armory full of shirtless men swinging every kind of weapon I can think of. Axes, swords, javelins—you name it, it’s in here. But no shields and no armor. And now I finally see what’s going on. My punishment for coming into their country uninvited is to spend the rest of my days fighting as a gladiator to entertain them. How delightfully cliché.

  My shirt is stripped off and I’m shoved inside. No instructions. Just one of those learn-on-the-job deals. They at least have windows in here, so that’s a plus. The sun is low and I’m guessing I’m looking east, which makes this morning.

  I’m careful not to make eye contact with anyone as I walk through the ranks of the dead men walking. Any one of these fuckers could be trying to kill me when we get tossed into the arena together. I try out a few of the swords hanging on the wall and come to the conclusion that the blacksmiths in this country are all morons. The weight is off on every one and half the blades are chipped beyond repair. I take the least worst one I can find and then start swinging it around in a corner of the armory.

  A few minutes go by before the doors open up and everyone stops what they’re doing to gawk. Walking inside is none other than that mask-thieving piece of shit, Ulric—flanked by four of the weirdest-dressed soldiers I’ve ever seen, all armed with crossbows.

  Ulric doesn’t look like some random, dirty-ass soldier anymore. Now he’s wearing a red cloak that hangs almost to the ground over pristine golden armor. He and his henchmen scan the armory for a second until they look in my direction. Then, wouldn’t you know it, they all walk straight toward me. I glance over my shoulder to verify there’s no one behind me and then adjust my stance to face them. When they stop in front of me, I push my jaw forward and say, “Well, if it isn’t Ulric the Dickless Wonder. If you’ve come to steal anything else, I’m sorry to say I’ve got nothing left. No money, no shirt. No girl. Just this shit sword.” I throw the shit sword to the floor as I say it.

  Ulric gives me a weird smile before pulling his cloak aside to reveal a weapon strapped to his waist. It’s a mace made of shining, polished metal with bits of gold etching here and there. He unfastens it and then removes it from his cloak before holding it out with the handle pointed toward me. I just stare, bewildered. When I don’t grab it right away, he says, “I want to see a good show for once. A fair fight.” I go ahead and take the weapon with a skeptical eye trained on Ulric. After handing the thing over, he tells me, “I’ll be expecting that back when you're finished.”

  I cock my head at him. “Oh, I’m sure your people can just come and scrape it off me at the end of the day when I’m dead.”

  He gives me another fucked up smile and says, “That would be very disappointing.” Then he directs his henchmen to escort him back out the door.

  That was weird. After they’re gone, I lift the weapon to examine it. The whole thing is about three feet long and it was clearly crafted with meticulous care. The golden bits are ornamental knotwork that run the entire length of the handle. Near the base on one side is a button. When I press in on it, the spiked ball at the business end of the weapon falls to the ground by a chain, converting the weapon into a flail. Impressed, I turn the weapon around and see that a lever has popped out near the end. It’s seated along a fluted portion that runs back to the base. I grab the lever and slide it down to retract the chain. When I fasten it back in, it clicks into place and the ball is once again seated at the end of the handle, converting it back into a mace. Not bad.

  When I tilt the weapon forward, I spot a pair of archaic runes engraved on the base of the handle. The first is the word for Hades’ lair in the underworld. The second translates to ‘storm.’ Looks like the name of this weapon is ‘Hellstorm.’

  I don’t need any of these other dickwads trying to steal my new toy so I keep the little chain trick to myself and just practice swinging it around by the handle for a bit. Every now and then, the floor of the dungeon shakes and I hear a low rumble through the walls. Either this place was built on a very active fault line or there is some large mystery creature making a lot of noise close by.

  Late in the afternoon, we’re all handed a bowl of slop and a hunk of bread stale enough to hold a bridge up with. It’s the first thing I’ve eaten in two whole days though, so I wolf the brick down and drain every bit of soup out of the bowl. I get some more practice in with the mace-flail-thing and sometime late in the evening, the doors open up and we’re all told to file out into the hall.

  We’re followed by a platoon of guards with crossbows. They force us to walk shoulder to shoulder, close enough to smell each other’s breath as we’re marched through the dungeon like livestock. The hum of crowd noise gets louder the closer we get to the doors at the end. I expect to see the arena when they open up, but instead it’s yet another enormous holding cell. On the other side is a set of stone stairs that lead up to two big wooden doors that sit at an angle like the entrance to an underground cellar. These are clearly the ones that lead up to the arena.

  The guards that wrangled us down here are now tying bandanas around each man’s head. They’re all different colors, and I can only assume they’re breaking us up into teams. A red one is tied around my head as the guard tying it grunts, “Stay here til your color is called.”

  Before he can move onto the next man, I ask him, “Do you know which team I’m fighting? I want to know who I’m up against.”

  The guard snickers. “Red goes last. You get to fight Gargantua.”

  “What the fuck’s a ‘Gargantua?’ Hey!” He’s already moved onto the next gladiator. I immediately scan the place for my teammates. By the time the headbands are all divvied out, I count four red ones aside from my own.

  As soon as the last one is tied, I hear drumming outside that’s loud enough to feel in my chest, and then a guard next to the doors starts belting, “Yellow! Blue! Yellow! Blue!” He doesn’t stop yelling until every man wearing either a yellow or blue bandana lines up next to each other facing the doors. And every one of them looks as confused as I am. Glad to know I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what the fuck is going on but I’m not sure how comforted I am by that.

  While they’re all doing their thing, I ask the next gladiator I see, “Hey, you know anything about fighting the Gorgonzola??” The man just shrugs and walks away. Then a minute later, one of the two doors opens and all the gladiators wearing yellow headbands are ordered out. The sound of the crowd was already loud, but it’s completely deafening when the doors are open.

  Once all the yellow gladiators are out, the door swings shut. Then a minute or so later, the drumming stops. And the shit gets so quiet I swear I can hear the paint peeling off the walls. Then with one more hit of the drums, both doors swing open and the blue boys run out blazing. The crowd loses their shit. The guy next to me starts to cry and the doors are slammed shut after the last man leaves. After that, we all stand there for about twenty minutes listening to the yellow and blue teams murder each other while the crowd goes wild.